


Let Me Know I'm Alive

by sharkcar



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Age Difference, Brotherhood, Clone Sex, Clone Wars, Drinking, Drugs, First Love, Growing Up, Growing Up Together, Jedi, Jedi Code, Kamino, Loyalty, Nicknames, Nightmares, Order 66, Togruta - Freeform, Umbara, clone culture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-02
Updated: 2016-09-02
Packaged: 2018-08-12 14:52:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7938736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharkcar/pseuds/sharkcar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ARC Trooper Fives is on a desperate run for his life, nearly unable to process how it came about. He thinks about his early life with his brothers, then later going off to war, meeting the Jedi and discovering girls. He recounts his experiences including the terrible losses of the war, his time on Coruscant with alcohol, drugs, and women, as well as his very complicated relationship with his Jedi commander Ahsoka.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let Me Know I'm Alive

It started to rain. I raised my gaze to the sky and the drops hit my face. There were no stars and the rain was cold. I didn’t mind rain. I was raised on a world where the rain was never ending. Instead of the sensations of a controlled environment of a sterile facility, like the one in which I was created, rain was something that you had to actually touch and know for yourself. It was real. In my eleven odd years of life, I had very few things that were like that to me. Real, I mean. So much that I had been through was beyond my control, so it didn’t have any significance for me. Like going through motions in a daze. Other things sometimes seemed like they were only in my imagination. Deeply felt, but devoid of substance. Like a dream. But there were things, like standing there at that moment, feeling the rain on my face, that were experiences that belonged to me alone. Those were the things that let me know I was alive.  
  
I was on Coruscant and running for my life. I had discovered a terrible secret and I didn’t know if anyone would listen to me before I was killed for what I knew. I had discovered that this war, the creation of us clones, was being manipulated for reasons other than what we had been told. As far as the galaxy understood, the war had been between two political entities, the Republic and the Separatists. As the army of the Republic, my brothers and I fought unquestioningly for our side. But the Jedi had long known that the Sith were involved in the war’s outbreak. The leader of the Separatists was actually a known Sith lord. Therefore, the Jedi told us that it was necessary for them to lead the Republic in the war in order to protect the galaxy from the Sith, from evil. Our war was their war, too. We clones believed that too. We had been created to fight for what was right.  
  
What I knew would take that all away. I had just been brought to Coruscant from Kamino, where I had gathered evidence that all we clones, the Republic’s soldiers, had been purposefully made with a bio-chip in our brains that could make us turn on our Jedi leaders. I found it easy to believe, any clone would. We all had recurring nightmares of killing the Jedi. Therefore, it didn’t surprise me when the Kaminoans tried to cover it up. They had done it. But why? I thought it must be a plot by the Separatists. They were our enemy, after all. Why then, had the Chancellor of the Republic set the dogs on me? He claimed that I had attacked him and I had done no such thing, I was just trying to warn him of something that he should have wanted to prevent. I thought he could stop it.  
  
The fact that the Kaminoans and the Chancellor were trying to cover it up meant that the Jedi were under threat from those they trusted. We clones were under threat too, we could have all been exterminated if we were known to be dangerous. If we had been made for the purpose of killing the Jedi, it meant that we were not created as men but terrible weapons. I had never been so afraid for me and my brothers. There seemed to be no way that this would end well for us. How had my life come to this?  
  
\--  
  
I was nine years old when I was drafted out of the academy to fight in the Clone War. In regular growth cycle, I would have been like my mid-twenties. My mind had probably developed to about the same level as my body or more. We clones were engineered to be fast learners. But in terms of experience, nine was still nine. This circumstance made for a pretty messed up situation, what we felt versus what people expected of us. In some ways I was always really young. In others, I had to grow up fast.  
  
My time in Kamino was pretty typical. I was light infantry, not anything more exceptional than that. I was with my batch mates from the first year on until graduation, and even after, with our first assignment together. Batch mates were the guys that were in your jar row for incubation. Their cribs were next to yours for first year.  
  
We started out as babies, but grew quickly and by the end of first year, we were like standard three-year-olds with the minds of five-year-olds. Droids took care of us then. They would clean us, dress us, and feed us at first. Then they taught us to fend for ourselves as soon as we had the motor function. The only contact we had with other beings was with each other, both our batch mates, and other brothers when they let us into the play areas. We were discouraged from doing things like touching the droids. Mild shocks, nothing too painful. We had climbing frames to develop our muscles. We wrestled and chased each other. We were allowed to hit each other. Not too hard, nothing damaging. We watched videos to learn to speak and read. I guess they used our clone template Jango’s voice for those programs. We mostly all pronounced Basic like he did. One of my batch mates, Droidbait, had a speech impediment. He had a funny way of saying things.  
  
Second year was mostly combat conditioning. That was awful. I still sweat thinking about it. Day after day in simulators to desensitize us to violence. My batch mates and I at least had each other through all of that. It was rarer for brothers to die in the simulators by my round, but among early batchers, that was really common, I heard.  
  
I remember the first time I was ever allowed to go outside. I was with my batch mates and a bunch of other squads our age. We had just started third year. That was an exciting time, starting our regular education. The oldest clones in the facility were two years ahead of us, but accelerated growth meant that although we looked about five or six, our older brothers already looked about twelve. The Kaminoans had started to give the first round of leadership trainees charge of us younger guys around this time to teach us different skills. They learned how to lead, we learned how to take direction. A droid brought us to cubbies that day and told us to dress ourselves in raincoats and rubber boots. We all got bundled up and put up our hoods. Our teacher for the first day was Wolffe. He was kind of a quiet guy, always laughing to himself like he was having a private joke. He helped us with our coats and shoes. We had only ever worn our red uniforms, so we didn’t really know how to do zippers. He had us form a line and lead us out to an outdoor platform. It was raining hard, as usual. Some of the older brothers were there to load the skeet launchers, while Wolffe gave us a tutorial on the guns. I remember waiting my turn, just looking up at the clouds and feeling the rain hit my face. I tried to catch some rain on my tongue to taste it. It didn’t taste much like the vitamin juices they gave us in the commissary, plainer, but unexpectedly cold. There was air moving so salt spray from the ocean was hitting us and we could see aiwhas in the distance, surfacing and flying before diving back into the ocean. The world was full of so many new sensations, I couldn’t help but feel happy. Lots of us kept asking if we could go use the bathroom. Wolffe got aggravated and told us to pee off the platform into the ocean. We all thought this was really funny. The Kaminoans never let us go without clothes except for bathing. Even then, you entered the shower cubby, it hosed you off, you exited and got dressed. Wolffe said he didn’t want to keep having to run us inside to use the toilet or get us changes of pants. We all laughed as we had competitions over who could pee the furthest.  
  
In third year, I got my name, which I had from then on. Mine was one that seemed pretty obvious, my number was 5555, so I was pretty quickly known as ‘Fives’. We came up with nicknames for each other kind of automatically once our standard education started and we learned more concepts and words. It just made sense to us. A lot of guys started with some pretty common nicknames, especially us infantry guys, Mortar, Trigger, Bullseye, Longshot, stuff like that. But those didn’t differentiate much. Some guys, like my brothers Echo and Droidbait, got nicknames they hated because nicknames were things we used to make fun of each other. If somebody did something memorable, good or bad, they could also be renamed. Or they picked their own new name. My brothers Cutup and Hevy did that. My nickname was not super creative or anything, but I knew that no one else I knew would have it. And at least it wasn’t a horrible one. Seriously, I knew a guy named Fishfood, which is a clone euphemism for shit. He never could shake it.  
  
The war had started when I was eight and a half. I was too young to go with the older guys. The ones that went to Geonosis and the guys drafted in the first few rounds when the Jedi formed their battalions. The older brothers were all so impressive to me. I couldn’t wait to go off with them. They would come back and tell stories when they were picking up new recruits, in their decorated armor and with cool haircuts and scars. Some guys brought back alcohol for us to try. We never got enough to get really hammered, since there were so many of us to share it between. But we’d love to have a guy bring back a bottle and all share it around in a group, drinking out of our kit cups. He’d tell us stories of what he’d done in the war. Wolffe came back after his whole battalion was wiped out six months in. He was picking up his new recruits. He had all this music on a player pod that he’d let us listen to. We loved everything we heard. He taught me and some other guys to pulverize prescription medication and snort it. It was incredible how it made us feel. He said he’d tried spice, too. With a female.  
  
I didn’t really grow up familiar with a lot of other species. In the early days, the only beings in the cloning facility were the Kaminoans and our template Jango and his clone son. My second year, the human trainers appeared. Jango had recruited Mandalorian warriors to teach us since he had been trained in their tradition. When the war started, Jango died. The Jedi took over supervision of our training, they brought in trainers of different species. Always guys, though. In hindsight, the Kaminoans knew what chaos it would have been to bring in women, I think.  
  
The first non-Kaminoan female I ever saw was the first one most of us saw. Jedi General Shaak-Ti. She was exotic, powerful, and amazing. She was also the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Every time I saw her, I felt funny. Like a warmth spreading from the inside of my chest. She barely noticed me. I looked just like everybody else. I wasn’t the only guy to have feelings for her. When she was around, all of us stood up straighter. We fought harder. We wanted to do better in the hopes of impressing her. Among guys my age, it was normal to make a little amulet and try to carve her picture on it. She was our inspiration almost on a spiritual level.  
  
When my batch mates and I in light infantry were in the final tests to graduate from the academy, my brother Echo and I tried to jettison the others, since our squad was in danger of failing. We didn’t want to be assigned as maintenance clones on Kamino. We would never have been able to leave that facility. Echo and I decided that we should look out for each other. We went to Shaak-Ti and asked for a transfer. She told me to have faith in my brothers, to support them and to remember that we had to work together if we wanted to succeed. We not only graduated, but Shaak-Ti congratulated me personally. My whole squad got medals. I made a good luck amulet of Shaak-Ti and tied it on my wrist. The montrals were too short, but I wasn’t much of an artist. I really admired her, though, she had given my life purpose.  
  
Our first post was guarding a listening station on the Rishi Moon. It was remote and not at all prestigious. We got so bored out there. We’d try to think about things that were more interesting than sitting around with nothing happening.  
  
Echo liked to read, but the only thing there were was reg manuals. He learned by memorizing. He was kind of a savant at it, actually. He could quote long passages from books verbatim. He had studied and memorized this strategy algorithm once. He could also pick out things that he’d heard once on a musical keyboard. I didn’t know how he could do that. Some of us had strange mutations.  
  
Some of the guys liked the posters of the Twi’lek girls we had around the station. Hevy gave them nicknames. But they weren’t real to me. They were just nice pictures like the ones we saw of terrain and lifeforms on other planets. Our Sergeant had been to Coruscant, he said they had real girls there who would do things with you for money. Sometimes even without it. He described things but they sounded weird. I guessed it was something you had to try firsthand. No use for us, we thought we’d never get out of that desolate place.  
  
I thought about Shaak-Ti all the time. She was so aloof, but I had still never seen a real woman besides her. I believed that Togrutas must be the most beautiful creatures in the galaxy.  
  
It made me pretty scared then, when I had my first nightmare. I dreamed I was on the Rishi Moon, with the desolate rock surface outside. The ground was covered with dead clone bodies. Everywhere, limbs in pieces, faces with dead eyes, corpses in every direction. I turned to see Shaak-Ti, her face was not like I had always seen it, the serene kindness was gone. Instead, she looked ferocious, with her lightsaber ignited. She looked predatory. I could not move. I began to sweat with fear. Then, my body began to move against my will. I raised a blaster and shot her in the face. I woke up bathed in sweat, with my chest constricted, struggling for breath. The next night it was worse. My body was taken over and I caved in her skull with my own fists. I had woken up and wanted to cry the way I had been crying in the dream. I hadn’t cried since my second year. The third night I felt myself wrap my hands around her throat and squeeze the life from her with my face close enough to her to feel her last exhalation of breath.  
  
I looked terrible the next day, so Hevy said that I should see the doctor droid. The droid gave me a shot of something to help me sleep. Next time I saw a Kaminoan doctor, I was put on a prescription for these sedatives. They helped, but nothing made the nightmares go away completely.  
  
Three of my batch mates and the rest of the guys at the station got wiped out when the Separatists attacked. Droidbait, Cutup and Hevy, those brothers had been with me my whole life. Echo and I felt terrible. We had threatened to leave them on Kamino and now we were without them. Droidbait was considered by all of us to be the stupid one. I don’t know how we quantified such things, we were all the same guy after all. It just seemed like he was the one who said the stupidest things of any of us in any given situation. Cutup was the guy to go to if you wanted to do something disobedient in the facility. He had participated in more than one break in to the infirmary to steal medications. Those could be used as currency among us clones. He had made a secret compartment in his bed drawer to hide contraband. Hevy was hyperactive and somewhat crazy. He was the one who had tattooed the number 5 on my head when we first got to Rishi Moon, with a couple of needles and ink. It was mostly straight. I was going to miss those guys, I knew. We were able to destroy the base and the Republic fleet arrived to repel the enemy. But we didn’t have a moment to mourn for my brothers. We just went on with our work as if nothing had happened. The closest we had was later when the Jedi said something about their sacrifice, when Echo and I got medals. But we clones didn’t even bow our heads to acknowledge those guys’ memory. It seemed so strange, to me. Why didn’t we do anything, I wondered, didn’t we care?  
  
That mission was how Echo and I started on our new lives. Like I said, we were given medals for our bravery. Come to think of it, I got a lot of medals. I didn’t really know what to do with them, since I didn’t have a real place to keep them. I didn’t have a permanent home, so I had to carry them around in my pack everywhere I went. They got heavy. It was kind of ridiculous, actually.  
  
Our ordeal on Rishi Moon was how we met Commander Cody and Captain Rex. Captain Rex of the 501st was every younger clone’s hero. He was pretty well known from our academy days, he had won Mandalorian jaig eyes and was good at everything. His shooting scores were unmatched in the academy even by the Battle of Kamino, when I checked the scores last. But we really liked him because he had been nice to every one of us when we were little. Of the leadership cadets who taught us later batchers, he was the most popular teacher. Once he entered the war, Rex had been repeatedly cited by the Jedi and the Senate for bravery. He was on the holo-net news all the time. He was practically the public face of the Grand Army. Cody was famous, too. He was no fun, in the entire time I knew him, but he was a real intimidating figure. We was a smart guy, he spoke well. He had been the highest rated cadet to ever graduate from the clone academy, and was some kind of badass at hand to hand traditional combats. As a warrior, he was calm and deliberate. As the clone commander for General Kenobi, Cody was more or less the coordinating director of the whole Outer Rim campaign. He had practically created the structure of the Grand Army. Two shiny rookies like Echo and me felt way out of our depths.  
  
Anyway, after the mission, we were to rendezvous with the 501st and the 212th on the cruiser Resolute bound for Bothawui. Commander Cody was going to handle our reassignment to another unit. On our way to the cruiser, we got a little detoured. We were picked up on the Rishi Moon by General Anakin Skywalker. The guy looked younger than I thought he was, after all I’d heard about him. He looked about the standard age a clone would look at seven. He came to the Rishi Moon in his personal joyriding junk pile, the Twilight. Oh, man, that thing. I threw up in the bathroom just from the smell of the inside of the ship. Like everyone else, I carved my name in the bathroom to mark the occasion.  
  
Before getting back to the fleet, Skywalker took us to a diner at the fueling station on Azeri. Cody, Rex, Skywalker, Me and Echo. It was a little distracting, there were a lot of women in there. All kinds. Twi’lek, human, Sallustan, Zabrak, a bunch more. I had never seen so many up close. Their shape was different from ours. It was beautiful, they had rounder, more interesting parts. They would walk by and it would be hard not to look. Okay, I was staring. The Captain warned me that they didn’t like that. General Skywalker asked where the harm was. I noticed a lot of the women in the room were actually looking at him. He did tell me, though, that some were too young for me, whatever that meant. They were all older than me in standard years, I was pretty sure. So what was the difference? I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to touch one of them. So I asked the guys. Cody and Rex said it was illegal for us.  
  
“But why?” I bet it would feel nice. They look soft and they smelled good.  
  
“The Republic seems to think that there would be a conflict between duty and attachments if you were allowed. I think it’s a stupid rule.” General Skywalker was really surprising to me. He seemed a lot more relaxed than I expected a Jedi to be. Way more than Shaak-Ti was.  
  
“Well, sir, I think the Republic doesn’t want us to be distracted. Our job is extremely important. Distractions could be dangerous.” Captain Rex answered him, wiping his hands on a napkin after wolfing down a large sandwich.  
  
“Not to mention, if you get arrested, you could be in jail instead of available for your job. That endangers us all.” Cody concurred. He wasn’t eating. I guess eating non-government food was forbidden, too, but neither Skywalker nor Rex seemed to care about that.  
  
I didn’t mention the girls again. The rule was, no fraternizing with civilians. I didn’t want my new commanding officer to be ashamed of me, whoever he would be. So I kept my eyes on my plate.  
  
When we got back to the Resolute, and got our medals, Captain Rex accepted us into the 501st, Skywalker’s outfit. It was the most famous battalion in the war. The Captain took us around to introduce Echo and me to the rest of the guys. They were a great bunch. Really tight knit. It was fun, just hanging out with those guys. Lots of swearing. Lots of friendly competitions. But lots of training, too. It was never ending, but we loved it. Echo and I felt so tough.  
  
We had our armor designs done by Waxer of the 212th, the decorations were so cool. Mine had a stylized Rishi eel, like the ones that we had at the listening station. Clone armor told of individual histories in its decoration. You could point at any component or any dent or scratch and be told a story.  
  
\--  
  
It was also on the Resolute when I first met Ahsoka. She was Togruta like Shaak-Ti, but smaller. Shorter horns. She was the single most beautiful being I had ever seen. Like a dream. I met her at training the first morning. She came over to Echo and me.  
  
“You must be the new guys.” She smiled.  
  
“Fives, Echo, this is Padawan Commander Ahsoka Tano,” Captain Rex introduced us.  
  
She held out her hand and I shook it. That was the first time I was ever touched by a woman. It made me feel kind of warm.  
  
Ahsoka ran some simulations with us. She was an incredible fighter. She barely seemed to acknowledge my existence. Just another clone, I guess. But I kept looking at her. I couldn’t help it. The Captain noticed and rolled his eyes at me. I tried to stop, but it was difficult.  
  
Ahsoka was so relaxed around us clones, not aloof like Shaak-Ti had been. She was just joking with everybody easily, having fun. My brothers treated her mostly like we treated each other.  
  
Maybe that was it, I thought. Maybe women were no different to interact with than men. I went up to her in the commissary for lunch and punched her hard on the arm like I would with my brothers.  
  
“Ow!”  
  
“I am so sorry! I…just wanted to say, good job out there today.”  
  
“Thanks?” She rubbed her arm and raised one eyebrow.  
  
“Um…you are a really impressive fighter.” I was certain I was sounding like some third year congratulating an older brother who had just won at a fist fight.  
  
“Thanks. I’m not exactly a shiny.”  
  
“I can see. I kind of still am, I guess. That engagement on the Rishi Moon was my only one so far. I’m excited to get into the fight.” I couldn’t figure out why I was talking so loud and so fast.  
  
“Good. We see a lot of action.” She walked off to sit with her master. Her skin was such a pretty color. Much of her back was bare. Her skin looked so much smoother than mine or my brothers’. I was standing there dumbly just watching her until Echo elbowed me and we went to get somewhere to sit.  
  
We were on mission after mission, pretty much always involved wherever fighting was heaviest. I couldn’t even count all the places I’d visited. Captain Rex was a great commander. He and Skywalker had a special partnership. Apparently the Captain and General Skywalker were developing specific methods for individual clones to use in assisting the Jedi. Non-Force sensitives could be trained to sense the Force slightly. It was important for things like withstanding Force torture, which Dark Side Force wielders could use on us. Or resisting mind tricks, which was crucial if we were captured. Or connecting with a Jedi to create a Force bond so that they could work together more efficiently. It was a controversial idea, General Kenobi wasn’t sure it was exactly ethical. Especially because to train us to do some of these things, we essentially had to have a Jedi use things like Force torture on us. But Rex had told him that he willingly volunteered for it in the hope of saving lives. I was really interested, so Rex said he would consider me as a candidate for it once they had developed the training program.  
  
I didn’t really work much with Ahsoka, not as much as I’d hoped. We hadn’t had much time to speak in a social context. She mostly stayed by her Jedi Master. I knew she was friends with lots of my brothers. She actually knew Commander Wolffe, she said they were music buddies, they shared things back and forth on their players. She and Rex were like a brother and sister, she would always make him laugh telling jokes or stories and doing impressions. But I was still just another clone to her. She knew my name, but we didn’t really have much to say to each other.  
  
I was sitting around in the common room on the cruiser one day. Ahsoka was there, too. A bunch of the guys were talking about what it was like on Coruscant, and how they had a bar, 79’s, serving clones alcohol, as much as you had money for. It sounded like fun. I was looking forward to my first shore leave so that I could try a lot of things. I was standing near Ahsoka, so I tried to make conversation. “So, are you going to 79’s with us the next time we’re on Coruscant?”  
  
The look on her face was completely confused. She laughed, but her eyes looked doubtful. I couldn’t figure it out? What had I said that was so weird?  
  
A few weeks later, General Skywalker took me, Echo and some other guys to pick up Ahsoka and Rex on Naboo. They had gotten sick with Blue Shadow virus and were on bed rest. We checked Theed, but General Skywalker’s friend Senator Amidala had taken them to the Lake District. So we went up there. The house was smaller than the palace, but just as beautiful. The lake was incredible, everything smelled of flowers, with birds singing and the sun shining through the leaves on the trees. We found Ahsoka, the Senator, and the Captain in soft chairs on a grassy terrace by the lake. It was the first time I had seen Ahsoka out of her Jedi regalia. She was wearing a sundress. It was yellow. I think I stopped breathing for about a minute and a half.  
  
My brothers and I fanned out by the lakeside for guard duty, while Rex and the others drank cold drinks. The Senator went to change clothes she said. General Skywalker had the housekeeper bring us drinks before he went to have a nap before dinner. Ahsoka went off to find something to read. Rex came over to the edge of the lake and sat with us on the grass. He was actually wearing his armor, even on vacation.  
  
“Um, Fives, you mind if I had a word?” Captain Rex was being strangely polite. Of course he could have a word, normally he was the one giving the orders.  
  
“Sure, Captain.” We got up and walked back into the house.  
  
He brought me to a balcony that had some chairs on it. He sat down in one and beckoned me to take a seat. “Fives, look, I…know how difficult it is not having been around many people who aren’t brothers.” I really hadn’t been, he was right. “And I know how you feel about Commander Tano.”  
  
I protested, “Sir, no, I…”  
  
“Don’t worry, I won’t say anything. But…she did mention that you asked her if she’d like to go to 79’s with you.” He looked sympathetic, so I sat down.  
  
“I really like her. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do with a girl you like, ask her to go somewhere with you?”  
  
“Yes, Fives, you’re not wrong. I didn’t mean to imply that. But, it’s just that, Ahsoka is not a girl that you can think of like that.”  
  
“Why not?” It was like a knife to the heart.  
  
“So many reasons. For one thing, she is your commanding officer. It’s inappropriate from a command perspective. Second, she is a Jedi, they are not permitted to have relationships. You don’t want to cause problems for her. Third, technically, we clones are not permitted either. Now, I don’t mind if you want a girlfriend, or if you need to find someone to have sex with. That’s normal. I won’t make you go without it. But the most important reason is that Ahsoka is much too young for you.”  
  
“Why? I’m ten and she’s almost fifteen.”  
  
“But the world sees you as thirty. No man that age can be with a girl as young as she is in most places in the galaxy. On Coruscant, that’s not acceptable.”  
  
“But why?”  
  
“That’s just how it is. Some parts of us are young, our years, our experience. Other parts of us aren’t, our bodies and our minds. But nobody ever sees our years and experience. To them, you are too old to be with her. That’s how she sees you, too.”  
  
“But I always feel like I’m younger than her when I talk to her.”  
  
“That may be, but trust me, it would make people uncomfortable, including her. You’re better off just forgetting those feelings.”  
  
“Will it be okay when she’s older?”  
  
“In a few years, she’ll be eighteen and you’ll look old enough to be her father. She won’t want that. Fives, I am just trying to save you from some heartbreak. It will never be okay.”  
  
He wanted me to go and apologize to her and tell her that it was a misunderstanding. I did. I played like I had just meant it as friends. She told me that my invitation had confused her because she was too young to drink. I didn’t really understand that either. I had been drinking since before I turned nine. I kept my distance from Ahsoka after that. I did my best to accept the way things were.  
  
\--  
  
I fought in the Battle of Kamino. It hadn’t been so long since I’d been there. Echo and I saw our friend 99 who worked in maintenance and cleanup. He was a bad batcher who lived near our barracks, a good guy. Echo and I got pinned down with 99, Cody, Rex, and some cadets in the barracks. We managed to fight our way out to the armory, mostly intact. 99 didn’t make it. Rex and the 501st were ordered to supervise cleanup of the clone dead. The Kaminoans used to dump dead brothers in the ocean around the facility. Rex was unsettled by it, since there were so many clone dead in that battle, in fact all the casualties had been brothers. In order not to cause a feeding frenzy around the cloning facility, we had to haul them to chite-shark feeding grounds in the west quadrant ocean. It was hard labor and the smell was ghastly. We just got through the work and didn’t even say some kind words over the drop site. It was too perverse.  
  
For that battle, Echo and I were promoted to ARC Troopers. Captain Rex put us in for some leave time to go to Coruscant and we went with him. Echo and I didn’t really feel like being supervised. We really wanted to try some things and although Rex told us he didn’t mind if we broke the rules a little, it was hard to under his supervision. Fortunately, he spent most of his leave time walking around. He had been really tired after the battle. He said he just wanted to be alone for a while. I noticed, since we were rooming together, that he was having the nightmares, too. Lately, I had been having them about Ahsoka. They were too unsettling to even describe.  
  
Echo and I went to 79’s to try getting drunk. We both got so trashed we couldn’t find our way back to the base. A passing officer escorted us and turned us over to Rex. They just put us in our bunks with buckets by our heads. I know I threw up at least once and Echo kicked the bucket over when he ran for the toilet in the dark. Rex woke up and swore at him, then had to clean up the mess. The next night, Echo and I had shared a death stick and it had made us see so vividly that we went into sensory overload with the noises and sights of the city. We made it back to the base and sat in the barracks common room laughing for a while. We were still trying to work up the courage to pay for girls. There were quite a few around 79’s and they kept asking us. But we discussed it and we didn’t want to embarrass ourselves by not knowing what we were doing. Some guys from Mace Windu’s outfit were headed over to a place called the Tchun Tchin where they said the girls kind of specialized in first timers.  
  
We walked in, a droid handed each of us a datapad and let us pick what things we wanted to do. Then we were each taken to a private room where a Twi’lek girl would undress us, do what we’d asked for, then leave. Then we would get dressed and pay on the way out. I looked at the menu, as long as you had the money, there was really a lot that was possible. I’d had no idea. I tried some other things the next few times I went in there on that and later shore leaves. I tried some of the girls at 79’s too.  
  
We discussed girls sometimes, my brothers and me. It was nice to not feel inexperienced in that kind of conversation anymore. The punishment for breaking the fraternizing rule was pretty light in the 501st. Run fifty laps on the track at the base or around the central hangar of a star cruiser. We loved to be seen in the group running after a leave. Everyone knew what it meant. It made us feel like men.  
  
\--  
  
As the ARC Troopers of the 501st, Echo and I were some of Rex’s picks for the Citadel mission, to break in and out of a Separatist prison. Rex was stuck going to a strategy meeting as an adviser, so we headed to Coruscant without him for preparations. We trained at the Jedi Temple with General Skywalker for Jedi-clone assisted techniques. Force pulling and tossing incorporated into combat, light saber assisted blaster maneuvers. Cody, General Kenobi and the rest of the mission team trained with us. Rex and General Skywalker had developed the techniques themselves. Skywalker then gave us a week of leave time while the mission was outfitted. We were absolutely sure we were going to die, but the adrenaline had us keyed up. Rex and General Skywalker, as well as Kenobi and Plo Koon were at 79’s the first night of leave. Rex left early, but General Skywalker came over to have drinks with us. He offered to take us to another bar, where he said they would let us in if he was with us. He took us to a nightclub in the embassy district and introduced us to a bunch of people he knew. He kept telling everyone what impressive soldiers we were and how many missions we’d been on. He did most of the talking, but the girls in that bar were really beautiful. And drunk. The prostitutes had never kissed me, but this one friend of General Skywalker’s did. She was an aide in Senator Organa’s office. I learned a lot about technique. Echo hooked up with a waitress in the coatroom. He tried to come and see her the next night, but without Skywalker they wouldn’t let us in. We went back to our same old places and had as much fun as we could.  
  
\--  
  
The Citadel was murderous. It started with us being carbon frozen. Then a free climb up a cliff lined with mines. It got worse from there. The physical strain caused by that place alone was enough to break a man. Never mind that we had brought Ahsoka with us. I knew she was a Jedi and could take care of herself, but worrying about her was driving me to distraction. Rex was right, attachments did make it harder to do my job.  
  
The objective of the mission was to retrieve Republic prisoners, clones, a navy captain, and Jedi General Piell. I think on that mission, we killed as many brothers as we rescued. Or at least the count was close. There, I lost my last batch mate. Echo died trying to defend a ship to get us off world, but was blown up with the damned ship. His loss had felt so damned senseless. Still, we took no time to acknowledge his death at all. We just made a run for it. We were in no less danger when General Piell died, but for some reason the Jedi took time to be sad about it. They put him in the lava ceremoniously. All of my brothers’ corpses were left on that planet to rot. Back at the Jedi Temple, General Piell was even given something called a ‘funeral’ where the Jedi said meaningful things about him. They didn’t invite any of us to it, I just heard what funerals were supposed to be like from Cody. He had never been to one either, but he had read about them. I admit, I cried a little about Echo. But I had my helmet on, so nobody noticed.  
  
Wolffe’s battalion came to extract us. He and I spent our off duty time on the cruiser back to Coruscant snorting the sedatives we were prescribed for the nightmares.  
  
After the Citadel, Rex and the 501st got called right back to the front. His and Wolffe’s outfits had to report to Felucia. I found him in the officers’ quarters packing. We had barely been at the Central Command base for an hour. He hadn’t even removed his armor. He told me that he had ordered me some leave time. At least it was some acknowledgement of Echo’s passing.  
  
“Fives, I was going to tell you and Echo after the mission. But I guess we’ll just be starting with you. General Skywalker and I have completed our program for training clones in Jedi assistance. Apart from myself, we have decided that you will be the first.”  
  
“Captain, I’m honored.”  
  
“Well, you’ve earned it. You really impressed me with that mission.” He patted me on the shoulder and slung the backpack on. “You’ll start just as soon as Commander Tano gets back from Felucia.”  
  
“Sir?”  
  
“Ahsoka is going to be your teacher.”  
  
\--  
  
Ahsoka was reported MIA a few days later. General Skywalker came back and said that he would handle my training, but that he needed some time. I had to wait on Coruscant and I was on the planet alone for the first time. It was strange. I wasn’t sure what to do, I had never been on my own before in my life.  
  
I ran into Boost and Sinker at 79’s, they were pretty guilt stricken. They had been the ones who lost Ahsoka on Felucia. I had been angry enough at them to beat them senseless, but Wolffe had beat me to it. They’d had a bit of a brawl. Wolffe had been given leave without pay for fighting, since he was the officer, but Boost and Sinker were joking about it, so they weren’t mad anymore. They were all three at 79’s together, but Wolffe was wearing civie attire. He had a shirt with the name of a rap group from Mandalore. Wolffe had moved in with this 79’s girl, C.C., by then, so he loved leave time. He calmed me down and bought me a lot to drink. He asked one of his prostitute friends to take me to her place to sleep it off. Wolffe came to get me the next day, saying I probably needed to blow off some steam. I guess that was the only way we clones really knew how to work through feelings. He took me to an underground fight club where we could win money boxing. I had been a boxing champion on Kamino, so I won a bunch of credits. He did too, betting on me.  
  
Two days later, it was over, Ahsoka was found.  
  
I was to report to the Jedi Temple for my training. My face was still bruised up from fighting, Ahsoka didn’t pay it much mind. She never really looked at my face much, I noticed.  
  
Commander Tano had just been through a kidnapping ordeal. Her skills as a Jedi were growing and she was going to be assigned new responsibilities. General Skywalker had suggested clone training because he and Rex had developed the program and really saw it as being the future of the military, so they’d each put forward the person they trusted most.  
  
According to the printouts Rex had given me about the training regime, I was first to be trained in sensing the Force. For non-Force wielders, it was very difficult, but by learning to become more attuned to it, we could tap into it with our instincts. Like a feeling, very faint and hard to detect, but that I would learn to recognize. Next would be resisting Force torture and coercion. Finally, Commander Tano and I would form a bond through the Force. When I got to that part of the description, I paused. This entailed me allowing her to read my thoughts and feelings. I had never been so nervous about anything in my life.  
  
The first part was a lot of meditating. Commander Tano would tell me to clear my thoughts. Next, I had to train with my eyes covered and try to visualize a blaster target. Commander Tano would explain the Force to me, describing it to me so that I could reach out and sense it. I really believed I could feel it. Eventually, I was able to even hit the target blind when I cleared my mind enough. It was hard to keep focus, but with practice, I was getting better.  
  
The next section was difficult. I had to learn to shield my mind from the Force, to resist it and block it out. Force coercion could be direct, like pulling something out of your mind, or prying your mind open. It could also be sneaky, whispering things until you thought that they were your own thoughts. It really scared me. With the nightmares, I had often seen Ahsoka coming to kill me. During this training, she tormented me. I started taking a larger dose of my sedative prescription at night. I could hardly bear the stress.  
  
In one particularly brutal session, I did see a vision of clones being killed one after the other on the battlefield all around me. I got really dizzy and nauseous. I passed out and woke up on the floor with Ahsoka kneeling over me.  
  
“Fives? Fives? Are you alright?”  
  
I sat up, but my vision went dark for a second. I put my hand to my head.  
  
“I’ll be fine. Just a little light headed, I guess.  
  
“I’m so sorry, I…”  
  
“No worries, that’s why we do this. I doubt Asajj Ventress or Count Dooku would have let up. I am supposed to build up my resistance to the pain,” I said. She nodded, actually looking me in the eyes for once.  
  
The next section was more personal. Rex and General Skywalker were natural friends, they had a lot in common and really admired each other. So forming a bond was the easiest thing in the world for them. Ahsoka said that what we needed to emulate was their trust in each other. She suggested that we start with more meditation, quieting our minds. She said she was able to sense something from me, but that I was stubbornly closed in other regards. I was embarrassed to admit why I might want to hide things from her. She was getting frustrated with me, I am sorry to admit.  
  
Finally, she decided to take a different tack. She said that maybe I could loosen up if we had some fun. She took me out to a kind of amusement park on the far side of the capital. She flew the speeder. She was such a scary driver. She kept laughing at how white knuckled I was.  
  
We rode some of the thrill rides when we got there. They were tame compared to the trip over, I told her. We played games. I was pretty good, so was she. I think she was using the Force. She was really competitive. Didn’t like to lose to a guy, I guess.  
  
I was surprised, but the place was so crowded, and there were so many different types of species, that nobody looked at us. Anyway, there was nothing in military rules of conduct that said that I couldn’t spend time with a Jedi. I had also worn civie clothes. Ahsoka laughed at the shirt I had bought. Apparently the musical group I was advertising was some kind of boy-band that she hadn’t liked since she was ten. I told her it was second hand and that there hadn’t been much of a selection in the only store I could find that would actually sell things to a clone. Ahsoka said she only had one set of clothes, really. Anything else was just a loaner.  
  
“You mean that wasn’t your yellow dress, that time?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“You know, on Naboo?”  
  
“You remember what dress I was wearing?”  
  
“Of course. I had never seen you like that before.”  
  
“Like what?”  
  
“You know…pretty.”  
  
She rolled her eyes at me.  
  
“So are you ready to try again?” She asked finally.  
  
“Try again?”  
  
“Try to let me connect with you through the Force.”  
  
I looked dubious. I was in the middle of a huge crowd, with noises and lights, smells and sounds. Not only that, I was walking around self-consciously, thinking people were looking at my lame shirt, and I was holding a paper cone of a kind of salty crispy snack. My senses had not been so overloaded since the death stick.  
  
“Close your eyes.”  
  
I obliged.  
  
“Okay, now with all this going on around us, it will lower your resistance. You’re happy, so you will be better able to trust me. Okay?”  
  
“Alright.”  
  
She walked around me slowly, “Listen to the sound of my voice. Follow it not just with your ears, but feel where I am.”  
  
I took a deep breath and concentrated.  
  
“Now, tell me a secret. Trust me.” I could picture her standing beside me, closing her eyes. “Don’t say it…feel it. Then open your mind and let me know what you’re thinking right now, through the Force.”  
  
I could picture her beside me. I could see myself beside her. I felt proud. Prouder than I’d ever been. Then I sent her the image of what I was thinking. I pictured us, as we would be in the future, a Jedi and a clone, side by side as partners and warriors. Our training had been going well and I was hopeful for the future. It was honestly what I had been thinking right then.  
  
I opened my eyes and looked at her. She turned to look at me, too. I don’t know why, but even though we’d finally connected, something about her face looked hurt.  
  
\--  
  
After the park, she told me she had a curfew at the temple. I told her I was going to go over to 79’s and see if any other brothers I knew were on leave.  
  
“Oh…you go there a lot, huh?” she asked.  
  
“Yeah. I also want to show Commander Wolffe my shirt. He’s going to get a kick out of it if it’s as silly as you say.”  
  
She smiled, but weakly. “Have fun. Tell Wolffe I said hi.”  
  
The next day, were taking a break from the meditating and concentrating and doing a round of simulator training in the old lightsaber-blaster combat.  
  
I found her putting on her practice gear by the cubbies that lined the entrance to the simulator.  
  
“So how was 79’s last night?” she asked.  
  
“Good. I went over to this girl C.C.’s after, she and Commander Wolffe were having people over for a little get together. Have a drink, have a smoke. Some girls there. It was fun.” I checked my practice blaster scope.  
  
She was quiet as she put on the shirt for her dueling costume over her regalia. Then, looking down, she asked, “What’s it like?”  
  
I was surprised and not really sure what she was talking about. “What?”  
  
“Sex, what’s it like?”  
  
“You’ve never…”  
  
“I’m a Jedi. I’ve never even been kissed.” She still wasn’t making eye contact.  
  
“Well…it’s nice. It feels nice, I mean.” It was the first time talking to her that I actually felt like I was older than her. I supposed by then, in that regard, I was.  
  
“Have you done it a lot?”  
  
“I guess.” I sat down on the bench in front of the cubbies. I had done it every time I got leave time. We all did. It was just like going to get some non-ration food, it was something you did as soon as you were off duty.  
  
“You guys all go to that strip club?”  
  
“I guess.” I was truthfully uncomfortable discussing it with her.  
  
“Why do you like to do that? I mean look at women and be with women who are only doing that with you for money?”  
  
“I don’t know,” I scratched the back of my head. “I guess we have a hard time getting anyone else to do it with us. It is still illegal for clones after all.”  
  
“Why do it at all? You don’t have to. Or you can wait for someone who actually cares. Why would you want to be that close to someone who you know doesn’t even care about you?” She finally did look at me.  
  
“It feels good to be with someone like that. It just does, whether they want you or not. And honestly, it’s not that likely we’ll find anyone if we held out for someone who cared. Ahsoka, we’re clones. Nobody cares about us. The whores take money, but at least they make us feel good for a little while. What else is there in our lives but fighting? I would love to be with someone who wanted to be there. With someone who touched me because she liked it. Or with someone who made me feel special because I was the one she chose for herself. But it will never happen. I’ll take what I can get. I mean, what are you trying to do? Make me ashamed of myself?”  
  
She put her palms up, “No. That’s not what I meant at all. I just…” She sat down heavily. “I just sometimes wish I could feel what other people feel, and do what other people do. We can’t, you know. Jedi. Just once, I’d like to know what it feels like to have someone think I was beautiful.”  
  
“I…”  
  
She got tears in her eyes as she stood. “Master Anakin just tells me to keep focused. But he’s the most conflicted Jedi in this temple. How am I supposed to know that what I’m choosing, to be a Jedi, is right for me when I’ve never even tried anything else? I’ve never even been tempted. Nobody has ever even wanted me.”  
  
That would have been the moment. I wanted so much to tell her what I felt. I had loved her for so long that the pain was indescribable. She made me light up every time I saw her. Being near her made me feel light headed. Here she was in front of me thinking that she was unloved and unwanted, when no other girl had ever meant anything to me.  
  
Yet I was frozen in place. I remembered what the Captain had said. She had been born before me, but I had been engineered to age faster. I looked thirty. She was fifteen. She was too young, it would never be okay. I had resigned myself to it, finally accepted it. But it had been so hard to do. I knew I didn’t want to burden her with my feelings, they were too awkward under the circumstances. My head was swimming as I fought to control myself.  
  
She crossed her arms and just kept looking at the cubby. I finally stood and touched her shoulder, “Ahsoka…you are a great Jedi. Don’t worry about boys. I’m sure there are tons who would like you, but they know they can’t say anything because you are dedicated to your mission. They respect you too much. That’s not a bad thing.”  
  
She looked up at me and squinted slightly. I wondered if she was sensing what I was really feeling. I was startled when I realized that she must be.  
  
I waited for a few seconds, too petrified to do anything. Then, slowly, she moved closer. She slid her arms around my neck and leaned her face up towards me. I bent my head to meet hers and her lips touched mine. My eyes closed and I drank in the experience. It wasn’t passionate, I was too frightened for that. No open mouths. Just a sweet kiss, the way I guess you would do if you were young. She broke off and backed away and blinked a few times looking up at me. “Thank you.” She whispered.  
  
From the kiss, I could tell that Captain Rex was right. I didn’t have to be a Jedi to read her feelings, it was apparent. She didn’t feel the same about me at all. We went back to work after that. We never mentioned it again. But I couldn’t take Rex’s advice and forget about her. There hasn’t been a single day since that I haven’t thought about that moment.  
  
\--  
  
I finished my training and rejoined the 501st on Umbara. That mission started out intense. General Skywalker led us through a brutal offensive and he and Rex were at the front of the assault. Their Force bond had the two of them able to communicate and work as one. I pictured one day working with Ahsoka that way, once she was elevated to knight.  
  
Then, suddenly, General Skywalker was called away to Coruscant by the Chancellor and we were put under the command of General Pong Krell. Right away, something about it felt wrong. Skywalker never left us in the middle of major action before. That guy loved to fight. And he had never left us without putting us under a commander we trusted, like Kenobi or Plo Koon. I told Rex I was concerned, but he said that we could trust any Jedi.  
  
Rex’s unflinching loyalty to the Jedi was a total liability in that horror show. Krell’s orders repeatedly got us massacred. Rex tried every way he could to mediate between Krell and us, to protect us. It took that bastard ordering Rex and my brothers to execute me and Jesse to break that absolute loyalty. But it did break. The firing squad was made up of my brothers. I was going to be killed not by droids, but by men I’d grown up with. It was a sickening thought. Rex ordered the firing squad to miss.  
  
Next, while Jesse and I were still in the brig, Krell gave false intelligence that the enemy was using our armor and set us against the 212th in a total bloodbath. Those guys, including Rex, had actually killed brothers by their own hands. That had NEVER happened in our very brief history. We regarded it almost superstitiously, as if the 501st and the 212th were cursed.  
  
As soon as we realized the deception, we, including some brothers from the 212th, marched in to arrest or kill that son of a bitch, Pong Krell. He slaughtered a few dozen more of us before we got him. We put him in the brig, but Rex had been about to execute him himself. A Jedi. Every brother in that room had had the nightmares. The parallel was not lost on any of us, believe me. We were all in cold sweats. Then Dogma shot Krell only after he vowed to annihilate us if someone didn’t kill him. Dogma got the death sentence for that.  
  
Rex and I compared notes before we briefed the Jedi. The normal military report we filed would describe it as a command issue, where Krell had used reckless strategies and had given false intelligence. It suggested that Krell had had a mental breakdown from post-traumatic stress. We were supposed to give other information straight to the Jedi. Information like Krell’s admission that he’d turned to the Dark Side and that he knew the Sith were gaining strength. We also mentioned Krell’s attempts to control our minds. Without Rex and my training, that disaster might have been a lot worse. More compliant brothers would have been Krell’s playthings.  
  
Krell had been focusing his attention on Rex, slipping through the shields in his mind and trying to wear him down. Rex said that when Krell ordered him and my brothers to execute us that he knew that there was not just a military reason for Krell’s decisions. He was deliberately causing suffering. My brothers chose to be loyal to Rex over their general. Krell had been so surprised.  
  
“So you would never kill me?” I asked him.  
  
“I would never willingly kill any of you brothers. That’s what made what Krell did so sick. He made us murder our own kind, just to be cruel. He tricked us and now I know I killed some of my brothers! How can we ever take it back?”  
  
We reported to General Kenobi what we could while he was on Umbara. Kenobi told us that he would deliver the information to the Jedi Council himself. I had asked to have Tup participate in the meeting. He was a new eight year old out of the Academy and a good pal of mine. He was also a guy I thought might make a good candidate as a clone-Jedi specialist.  
  
A few days later, we all briefed Skywalker by holo-com. It was a pretty emotional exchange. Skywalker was devastated and kept apologizing for failing us. But Rex was right, what had happened couldn’t be undone. Clones had killed their brothers. A clone had killed a Jedi. A Jedi had killed some of us. Our trust in each other was shaken. The Jedi-clone friendship was riddled with doubt. Skywalker reported to the press, praising Rex’s valor and loyalty to the Republic. Rex sent Krell’s body back to the Jedi to be disposed of respectfully. They were both being polite and civilized. I don’t blame them, the situation was a political powder keg.  
  
We didn’t get leave time after Umbara. I think our appearance on Coruscant would have sparked some anger among the clones. It would have reminded them of how vulnerable we really were. The 501st had to stay on that awful dark nightmare of a planet. The incinerators on Coruscant where they burned the clone dead were working overtime. There were so many bodies that they were backed up. So, the cleanup on Umbara was going slowly. Rex said he was beginning to think someone was ordering him to supervise all these cleanups of clone dead just to torment him. He looked like a scared kid when he said it, arms folded around his knees.  
  
We were sitting on a hill above the airbase that we had made our headquarters. Rex’s face looked drawn and his eyes sunken. We both wondered when the bad feelings this war was causing would stop for a while. “I don’t know if I can take much more of this, Fives. I feel awfully close to a breaking point. This whole affair has made me wonder if my service even matters. Why am I doing this?”  
  
“You’re a great soldier, brother. You are, because you care about people. Keeping people safe. Standing beside your brothers. Those things matter.”  
  
“But the things I’m made to do? Do you know how many sentient beings I shot in the head last week? I ended lives in an instant and I felt nothing. They weren’t even real to me. But the brothers I shot? I can’t get that image out of my head. I’m having the nightmares even while I’m awake now.” He put his chin on his crossed arms.  
  
I stood up and stalked around a bit, “Why did they make us this way? Why did they make us intelligent enough to realize what is happening to us? Why would they put us in battle to massacre us and make us helpless to do anything but keep fighting? The smoke from that stupid incinerator on Coruscant is probably blocking out the sun. What was the point of all those lives? Some of those guys had just left Kamino, they had never seen anything but that facility and this awful place. What is the point of my life? Who will even care when I’m dead?”  
  
He put his forehead to his helmet, which is gesture of honoring the dead in Mandalorian society that we’d seen our trainers do on Kamino. “I swear,” he said with his eyes closed, “I will not let us be forgotten.” It was the first time I had ever seen a clone do anything to honor our own departed.  
  
\--  
  
What can one say about the mission to Kiros? It was the most epic time of the war for me and I was barely involved in the combat. We, the 501st and the 212th, went to Kiros to rescue a colony of Togruta artists from the Separatists. We discovered that they had been kidnapped and enslaved, so a special force, Skywalker, Kenobi, Ahsoka, and Rex, went to Zygerria. Our cruiser transported them close to the system and waited nearby in case an extraction would be necessary. That mission, Rex went undercover with the Jedi. That was the type of thing, I knew, that I would be doing one day, with my training.  
  
We had a signal relayed once General Skywalker and Ahsoka escaped Zygerria, Cody went to Coruscant to pick up the 104th as reinforcements and we went to rendezvous in the Kadavo system. Rex and Kenobi had been captured and enslaved with the Togruta in a mine. We rescued the Togruta and brought them back to Kiros. The Jedi and the Togruta arranged a party for us when we got back, we were all euphoric.  
  
Evidently, Rex was quite popular with the Torgruta ladies. He had defended them from the slave drivers in the mine, despite them activating the shock collar on him. He was a master at withstanding pain. He took a piece of the collar as a souvenir. He told me that it reminded him that sometimes, it was clear why his duty mattered.  
  
By about the fifth girl that came up to thank him, I could barely stand it. Each one was more beautiful than the last. Rex was pretty drunk, but he asked one of them over to introduce me.  
  
“Ashla, please allow me to present my brother, Fives. He is my ARC-Trooper. He’s a highly decorated commando.” He had become almost as suave as General Skywalker at that. He just walked away back to talk to Wolffe. Wolffe was trashed, Boost and Sinker, his batch mates, were as well. Those two were falling asleep with their heads on a table. Jesse was waiting with a marker to draw lewd things on their faces once they passed out.  
  
“Pleased to meet you,” I said.  
  
Ashla smiled at me. She was as beautiful as Shaak-Ti, but younger. I’d say about twenty-five standard years. The same violet eyes.  
  
“I’m Fives…like he said.” I gritted my teeth as soon as I said it. Smoooooth.  
  
“And I am the aforementioned Ashla,” she smiled. She had that wonderful accent that Shaak-Ti had.  
  
“Um…so this is an artists’ colony. What kind of art do you do?” I asked. Man, she was pretty.  
  
“I’m a dancer.”  
  
“Oh right, hence the dancing.” Hence the body. She had just been dancing right before with some of the other girls.  
  
“Right.” She smiled like I was funny, but not like she was laughing at me, more like she thought I was cute. “Did you like it?”  
  
“I loved it!” I knew instantly that I’d sounded way too enthusiastic. I’d practically spilled my drink on her.  
  
“I could teach you, if you want?” Me, dance? That would have been bad. Like another of Commander Wolffe’s shirts said, ‘Fett Boys Don’t Dance.’  
  
Then she touched my arm. I froze. That was the gesture most of the pros from 79’s used when they were asking us if we wanted to go with them. I had always liked it.  
  
“Uh, yeah.”  
  
“Come on, we can go to my house, I have a lot of music back there.” She took my hand and led me away. I glanced at the Captain to make sure it was alright. He gave the thumbs up and chugged another drink.  
  
She had pinned me against a few walls to kiss me on the walk to her house. I was so high on adrenaline and alcohol, I was dizzy. She kissed me again as soon as we were through the door. She said she was so happy to be free from her ordeal that she said she needed to hold someone, to do something that made her feel alive. I got my armor off so fast you would have thought it was a drill.  
  
I had never known sex could be like that. I was so attracted to everything about her that my body felt like it was ringing. Every touch set off waves of excitement. She was passionate and she didn’t hold back. I knew she wanted me, by the way she touched me and kissed me, with enthusiasm I could feel. Our hearts were racing. She whispered my name. Eventually, she screamed it. We were there for hours, just the two of us, doing everything we wanted. I had never been with anyone in that way, in a way I could touch and experience fully, something that was more than just a feeling, like Ahsoka, or empty action, like the whores. I fell asleep holding Ashla tightly with my heart against hers. I knew I would probably never see her again. But in the morning, as we came together one last time, she put her forehead on mine and told me that we would always remember what it had meant to us. I have thought about that every day since, too.  
  
I barely made it to the transport on time the next morning. I was one of the last guys on, I ran into Commander Wolffe who was nursing his hangover, so moving slowly. He was having some of his guys carry Boost and Sinker onto the ship. They had Old One Eye drawn on their foreheads and some lewd Togruta words on their cheeks. Jesse had found some help with his vandalism of the government property, so to speak.  
  
Wolffe looked at my stupid grin, “So?”  
  
"What?"  
  
“Tell me about the fifty laps you took on that girl last night, or did you want to wait until Rex wakes up so he can hear, too?”  
  
I saw the Captain passed out on his back on a large crate, a fuel jug of his homemade wine beside him.  
  
“Nah. I can’t talk to him about that stuff. It’s too weird. He’s too much like a dad. Like, I think I could get in trouble, you know. He doesn’t want anyone being disrespectful of the ladies we’re with by discussing them.”  
  
“Well, I’m not your C.O., so spill.”  
  
I just had to tell somebody. It had been too amazing and I was sure none of us would ever see Ashla again. Besides, I wasn’t disrespectful. Everything I had to say about her was the highest praise possible. Wolffe told me a few stories in kind. Man, that guy had been around.  
  
\--  
  
I wasn’t on Coruscant when it happened. I was still on Cato Nemoidia. The 501st didn’t accompany General Skywalker, Ahsoka, and later Rex back to Coruscant after a terrorist attack on the Jedi Temple. We had to stay to back up the air offensive on the southern bridge cities. I found out via the damned holo-net news. Ahsoka Tano, my teacher and friend, as well as the girl I’d come the closest to being in love with, was arrested and charged with murder. Furthermore, the Jedi expelled her from the Order. As acting commander of the 501st, I was permitted to call Rex. I told him I was worried.  
  
“Why would the Jedi abandon her like that? She’s one of their own. Clones would never do that to each other willingly.”  
  
“I did see a brother betray us once, Fives. On Christophsis. Slick sold intelligence to the Separatists. He didn’t kill us himself, but he got a few of us killed. Tried to frame other guys. It can happen.”  
  
“Okay, one guy out of millions. But the rule holds for almost all of us. But this is the whole Jedi Council turning on one of their own! We all know Ahsoka would never do the things they are accusing her of. The Jedi must know it too. Why would they abandon her? I can’t understand it.”  
  
“I guess they thought they had no other choice. General Skywalker fought them, but he isn’t on the Council, he had no say in the decision making.”  
  
“She’ll be found innocent, though? Right?”  
  
He said he didn’t know.  
  
General Skywalker did eventually find the evidence to save Ahsoka. Then she left the Jedi for good. Sometimes at night, I would wonder if she would hear me if I called her through the Force. I tried a few times. I knew I wouldn’t be able to hear anything she said back, but I hoped she knew I still cared about her. She would always be my friend, after all.  
  
I never saw her again. I felt like a part of me had been ripped away leaving a gaping, jagged hole in its place.  
  
\--  
  
I went straight from Cato Nemoidia to Ringo Vinda. That was a huge space station encircling a planet. Indoor fighting felt so claustrophobic. We were pushing a forward offensive following General Tiplar when Tup came up behind her and shot her in the head. Rex and I were nearly sick on the floor right there. The nightmares. Umbara. Clones killing Jedi. Something was very wrong.  
  
Next, what happened was even stranger. We sent Tup off for testing on Kamino when the Separatists tried to steal him. Rex, Skywalker and I were able to rescue him but it was clear that there was more to the event than we’d supposed. We suspected a Separatist plot. Possibly that the Separatists had weaponized a virus to cause us to have a mental breakdown. Rex and I thought that Tup might not have known the difference between dreams and reality. So I went with Tup to Kamino to gather what information I could. Yet everywhere I turned, I was blocked from asking questions and was given insufficient explanations. The Kaminoans seemed to want the information to disappear. I fought hard to get to the bottom of things.  
  
Next came the discovery that Tup had a bio-chip in his head that had degraded. Similar chips were in every brother. I removed mine to prove it. They claimed it was an inhibitor to make us less aggressive, but it just could not be a coincidence that Tup did the exact thing that we all dreamed of doing, night after night. I knew that the chips were dangerous.  
  
Shaak-Ti was willing to listen to me, but I was defending a clone who had killed her fellow Jedi. I couldn’t expect her to side with me. The Kaminoan doctor was arguing for branding me defective and lobotomizing me. At least they let me go to a hospital on Coruscant to try and explain.  
  
I tried to tell the Chancellor. He met with me alone, with just a contingent of brothers. I could trust them. He asked them to turn off the speakers in their helmets so they wouldn’t hear. I carefully explained what I had discovered.  
  
“Yes,” he said slowly, “The Kaminoans engineered you with a chip that would make you obey orders?”  
  
“Yes,” I began to feel pain behind my eyes.  
  
“And you believe that these chips cause you to kill the Jedi?”  
  
“Yes…and that someone will use us to do it, that’s why they are covering it up.”  
  
“Well, we had to cover it up,” he practically hissed, “We cannot allow the Jedi to find out our plan.” I looked up and saw the Chancellor was smiling at me. He looked like the face of evil. Suddenly, I knew I had to stop him! I knocked him over and one of my brothers attacked me. We struggled for the blaster, letting off two rounds at the ceiling. I fought him off and aimed the blaster at the Chancellor, when Shaak-Ti came running in and Force threw me against the wall. I fled in terror. I contended with more of my brothers to get through the door. None ever fired on me, they weren’t trying to kill me, only stop me.  
  
I fled down a stairwell, with Shaak-Ti in pursuit. It was my nightmare, her running me down like a predator. The Force jumped down the whole stairwell and descended, her robes flapping like the wings of a bat. I ran through the lobby of the hospital, falling at one point, as I desperately made for the door. Shaak-Ti crossed the whole lobby in one Force jump. I dove through the blast doors just as they were closing.  
  
\--  
  
Now I was walking the streets in the rain with my thoughts. Why did the Kaminoans put bio-chips in our brains? Why did the Separatists try to kidnap Tup? And why was the Chancellor in on it? Why did everyone want us to kill the Jedi? If it happened, I was sure that the Jedi would turn on us as soon as we were a threat to them. I had seen on the battlefield what the Jedi could do to their enemies. I had never been so scared, for everyone I cared about.  
  
Even I knew how crazy it sounded. No one had believed me yet. But only we brothers knew about the nightmares, we never told anyone else. We didn’t want people to be afraid of us. When we had to speak of them in front of non-brothers, the slang term was ‘the mission’.  
  
So I did the only thing I could think of. I had contacted Rex. He knew me, he trusted me. He’d had the nightmares. We had experienced those nightmares come true on Umbara and Ringo Vinda. Only we would know how real this truly was. I knew he would believe me. He was my brother, and a brother would never hurt me.


End file.
